A few people, over the years, have fussed at me for sometimes cutting off the mediums before they’re finished and yes, I’m guilty of that, and I plan to work on it. Old habits die hard, though. I think part of the problem is I think they’re finished when their voice starts to fade a bit. Also, when a question pops into my head, my brain is so covered with Teflon that I’m afraid I’m going to forget it. But I’ll keep trying. You guys just hold my feet to the fire!

If you missed yesterday’s great radio show, here it is:

And now for yet another post in our series on love:

Me: Einstein, before he died, apparently tried to create an equation to describe Love.

Einstein: Yes, I was.

Me: Is there a way to mathematically define Love, that energy called Love?

Einstein: Not yet, but we’re getting close.

Me: Well, I mean IS there one, period? We don’t have one yet but—

Einstein: Yes.

Me: Okay.

Einstein: It includes three symbols.

Me: Whoa, that’s it? Three symbols?

Einstein: Three symbols.

Me: Wow, I just thought there would be—

Einstein: No, it’s very simple.

Me: I thought it’d be a while chalkboard full of integrals and stuff like that.

Einstein: If it’s that complicated, you are nowhere near the answer, and you’re still in your head. Any equation that I produced was always simple and elegant, and knew that once I got to that place, the answer would be solved. Everything profound in life is simple.

Me: Mm. That’s true.

Einstein: And often overlooked.

Me: Humans have a hard time with simplicity. They want to complicate things all the time!

Chewing the fat with Albert.

Me: Why is that? The mind getting in the way?

Einstein: Myself, included.

Robert and I laugh.

Robert: He just stuck his tongue out!

Me: Oh, as only Einstein can do. I know that iconic picture.

Robert: He likes to make faces. He just like crossed his eyes and anyway. I didn’t expect that from Einstein!

Robert laughs again.

Me: So we have to look at Love in simplistic terms because it’s probably very elegant quality.

Einstein: There’s an emotional way it can be described, which Erik has done quite well. It’s about connection, but there are things we must recognize that are necessary to enable that connection. An absence of judgment is one of those.

Me: Mm hm.

Einstein: Compassion is another, and if you’re compassionate, of course you’re going to be kind. And the other one is awareness. What I mean by awareness is not being so into your own head that you completely miss the fact that someone is standing right next to you, suffering. Most people are so into their own little world that they completely miss the homeless person on the side of the street starving to death or dying of a disease, or they miss an animal that has been wounded. That awareness can also play out in another way where a person sees those things but tunes them out. They recognize that it’s there, and they’ve seen these things since they were young so they become desensitized to it. They lose the awareness of it. That’s acquired.

Me: So you have to be mindful of your environment.

Einstein: Right. Mindfulness and awareness, as I see it, are the same things.

Me: Yeah. Mindfulness looking through the eyes of compassion. What else about love? Let’s do open mic time. Take it, Erik, but focus! No rabbit holes, please!

Erik pretends like he’s singing on stage, dancing wildly.

Me: You had a good voice, though, Erik, I’d have to say.

Erik: You think so, Mom? Uh uh!

Me: Yeah, I thought so. Sort of.

Erik: See Moms, they love their children when no one else would.

Me: Yeah, that’s right.

Actually, I remember him having not so good a voice. Haha!

Robert (chuckling): He’s so silly. What other kinds of love stuff do you want to talk about, Erik?

(Long pause)

Erik: There’s actually a kind of love that’s a self-love kind of thing.

Me: That’s what I was just going to say! Oh my god, I just channeled that. Self-love. Yeah!

Erik: So, for me, my self-love was taking my socks off, spreading my toes and admiring the jam between them.

Robert: Now he’s just being silly.

Me: Oh, god. You had some stinky feet!

Erik (teasing): It was just wonderful. I could just look at that and see that each piece was just so unique.

Me: That’s just nasty.

Robert (laughing): I’m sorry. He’s just giving me these visuals.

Me: I hope the smell doesn’t come with those.

Erik: Each had their own smell and—

Robert: What was the point in that?

Erik: Well, dude, a lot of people would immediately think, “That’s gross”—

Yeah, normal people.

Erik: –and would get repulsed by it, but shit, I just fucking love myself! I was happy with what I had produced!

Me: All right, so tell me about self-love for people who have clean feet.

Erik: That’s my whole point. It’s about accepting yourself exactly as you are.

Me: Right, flaws and everything.

Erik: Things that people would label as flaws. There aren’t any. Accept everything about yourself.

Me: Yeah, you’re perfect. You’re perfect.

Erik: Yeah, you’re absolutely perfect. If there’s anything in your experience that you of course have the ability to change like enhancing who you are or enhancing your health or well-being, that’s the best place to start, accepting yourself as you are. Once you do that, you take the pressure off of yourself.

I sneeze.

Robert: Bless you.

Me: Thanks. I need all the help I can get.

Erik: I accept you for your sneezes. Beautiful sneeze, Mom!

Me: That was my best, man. A work of art. Of course we are whole and part of God so how could we not love ourselves?

Erik: How can we not love ourselves? That’s a question? It’s so easy. You know when a person is not loving themselves when they start doing things that are harming themselves, for example. The body really IS a temple, a temple for your soul. Your soul holds your body in reverence because the body is containing it. It’s allowing the soul to go through this experience.

Me: I think I just heard an EVP, Erik talking just a few seconds before.

Robert: I was going to tell you that Erik told me he was going to try to manifest some of those things.

Me: Yeah, I heard something. I’ll have to look at it. You guys check like 30 seconds before and listen. (in an authoritarian voice) And report back to me!

Robert: That’s right.

Erik: You’ll know if you’re not living in self-acceptance and self-love if you’re doing things to harm your temple. There’s nothing wrong with having a few drinks or getting stoned or shit like that. Fuck, I love pot! Fucking pot is awesome great.

Robert: That’s funny the way he said that, “Awesome great.”

Erik: But there is a point when it can become destructive. Everything can.

Me: Oh, sure. It’s all about moderation.

Erik: I was just going to say that, Mom. You’re channeling me today!

Me: I know!

Erik: You channel me a lot.

Me: Wow!

Erik: You do that all the time. So whenever your temple is being harmed like that, it’s out of balance. You know you’ve crossed the line by taking more or giving more, and it’s creating suffering for you or for someone else. Then you have to stop and address that. There are a lot of people who connect with the blog, and the whole reason they’re doing it in the first place is because that’s a place where they have been. They weren’t accepting themselves, and it could have come from multiple places. In fact, it always comes from multiple places.

Me: Ah, like what? Give me some examples.

Erik: From peers, from family, from the culture.

Me: Which tells us, “You should be like this, and guess what, you’re not! So how can you love yourself?”

Erik: Right, and from television, whatever it is. Then a person starts to believe that they’re disabled in some way. They take ownership of that disability until they really become that way.

Me: And they feel like they’re to blame, so they feel the guilt.

Erik: Right, and shame.

Me: Like, “I could have a better body if I just went to the gym three times a day.”

Erik: But then, of course, you beat yourself up for not going to the gym, and because you’ve done that, you don’t even have the energy to go there.

Me: I know!

Been there, done that.

Erik: So then you feel worse about yourself because you didn’t go to the gym, and you beat up on yourself some more! Then you feel less able to go, and, before you know it, you’re feeble, sitting on the couch and you can’t get up.

Me: Sounds like me lately. I have to go to kickboxing after this, guys.

I display my t-shirt to the camera.

Me: Kickboxing shirt right here! Here we go. I look like a slob, but…

At least I can kick some ass.

Robert: What does it say?

Me: “Kickboxing. Because you might run out of ammo.”

Robert laughs.

Robert: That’s such a Texas thing!

Me: I know! I’m Texan, guys! Don’t send me hate mail about guns. We have no guns in our house! Blah, blah, blah, so don’t go there. It’s just a shirt.

Robert: No, it’s funny. It’s funny! I like it. I need one of those shirts, too.

Have an awesome weekend, peeps! Hope it’s not as hot where you are as it is here!